Focus on IT Blanchardstown & Focus on WIT
Dr Garret Brady, a lecturer in Engineering at IT Blanchardstown was recently awarded funding from Enterprise Ireland’s Commercialisation Fund Scheme for a novel electrical generator for ocean wave power
The SR2 project has just begun in IT Blanchardstown (ITB). Co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) under Ireland’s European Structural and Investment Funds Programmes 2014-2020, the SR2 project will design and build a novel electrical generator that could help wave energy devices, generate electricity more effectively, and test it under simulated ocean conditions in the lab.
Situated on the western tip of Europe, Ireland has some of the most energetic seas in the world. Development of devices to harness this energy for electricity generation has gone on for many years, for example at the Centre for Marine and Renewable Energy (MaREI) in Cork, and elsewhere.
“Offshore wind turbines are becoming a central part of many countries’ generation capacities,” says Dr Brady. “Thanks to companies such as OpenHydro in Greenore, Co Louth, tidal turbines, which harvest energy from tidal currents, are also becoming cheap and easy enough for utility companies to consider installing.
“Huge effort worldwide is also being put into ocean wave power. Hundreds of projects are currently underway to develop wave energy device technologies that will convert the power of ocean waves into electricity, many of which are in Ireland. All of these devices are different, yet many of them work by somehow converting the up-and-down motion of ocean waves into a turning force, driving an electric generator. Electricity generated in this way can be post-processed and added onto the National Grid.”
Dr Brady says their aim is to develop a generator for use in these wave energy devices that is simpler and cheaper than what is currently on the market. “It will also be better able to withstand the hostile environmental conditions on the sea. We plan to build a prototype and test it in the lab here in ITB, using a programmable power train to simulate the irregular, ‘wild-speed’ forces that a generator in a wave energy device on the ocean would experience.”
The total funding awarded to the SR2 project is €168,000, under Enterprise Ireland’s Commercialisation Fund scheme. The SR2 project builds especially on the success of the LINGEN project (2010-2012), a two-year EI-sponsored project between ITB and Wavebob Ltd, to develop a linear generator for their wave energy device, and test it in ITB.
“A positive result from this project could lead to follow-up partnership projects with Irish wave energy developers, to develop and install larger-scale, marinized versions of the generator on wave energy devices at sea,” says Dr Brady. “This would be a major step along the way to a proven, reliable generator technology for wave energy worldwide.”